The Volcano Ogre

by Lin Carter

  Without a thought as to the possible consequences, the girl swung one leg over the rim of the crater — felt around for a foothold — found the beginning of the all-but-invisible ledge that went zigzagging down to the hidden mouth of the cave — swung over the edge and vanished in the flying clouds of steam.

  When Nick came puffing and groaning to the top a split-second later, she was nowhere to be seen.

  Phoenicia Mulligan had simply vanished from the face of the earth.

  Nick groaned and rolled his eyes heavenwards.

  “Dang that nutty blonde,” he cursed feebly. “If I don’t find her, the chief’ll have my hide!”

  CHAPTER 18 — A Secret Passage

  The dwarfish detective, with Scorchy Muldoon at his heels, went scrambling up the rocky trail on which Prince Zarkon had so mysteriously vanished into thin air.

  The volcanic mountain, obviously very old, was of a remarkably low elevation. Quite likely, Mount Rangatoa had blown its top, so to speak, many times during the aeons of its history; each time, this had crumbled away the cone of the volcano in its tapering upper parts. What was left by this time was a mere stump of what had once, geological ages ago, probably been a soaring, Fujiyama-type mountain. And erosion had done the rest of the job, crumbling the hardened lava-streams into rich, loamy soil, building up a land-mass around the tall cone-shaped peak. This had doubtless been the genesis of Rangatoa Island, itself.

  By the zigzag ledge, therefore, it was only a short trip up to the top of the mountain. An agile man with sound wind could accomplish the climb — here on this side of the mountain, anyway — in mere minutes.

  But Zarkon could not possibly have gotten to the top of the volcano during the very brief time that his actions were hidden from the watching eyes of Señor Luis Gonzalez.

  Scorchy reasoned this out for himself, and said as much to the little Hispanic detective, who stood there on the trail, gnawing his straggly mustache in a fury of bafflement.

  “The chief musta either gone off the trail somewhere, or….” he mumbled, letting his words ebb into silence. Or what? Scorchy couldn’t think of an or what to add to the above remark.

  “Eete ees that ‘or hwhat’ that bothairs me,” said the popeyed little man. “Hwhere could ’ee have gone, eef ’ee went off the trail, thees Preence? See for hyourself, Señor Scorchy, the mountain, she ees smooth an’ unbroken to eithair side.”

  Chewing on his calloused knuckles, Scorchy had to agree. He knew Zarkon well enough to know that the Ultimate Man was unpredictable and full of surprises. Very often, the Prince was several jumps ahead of everyone else connected with a case, and had things doped out in his head. Since Zarkon usually kept his thoughts to himself on such occasions, he more often than not would pull some uncanny trick, like this one, catching everybody else by surprise. But popping out of existence, while clinging to the sheer cliff-like side of a mountain by broad daylight, with two men looking on, well — this trick was a bit uncannier than most of the ones he’d pulled within Scorchy’s memory.

  For want of any more-reasonable explanation of Zarkon’s disappearance, Scorchy in despair turned to the standard ingredients of melodrama.

  “All right,” he grumped, “so maybe there’s a hidden door here, maskin’ a secret passage, or something!”

  By way of emphasis, Scorchy slapped the sheer wall of rock right where he was standing.

  And in the next instant he uttered a shrill yelp and jumped nearly a foot into the air —

  For the rock he had touched just then — slid inwards!

  A black rectangular cavity was thus revealed. A yawning entrance whose black mouth gave upon a tunnel hollowed into the solid rock of the mountain!

  “H-holy ,J-Jumpin’ Shamrocks!” gulped the little prize-fighter, his eyes bulging with astonishment. “Open, Sesame! And lookee here, Hawkshaw, we got us a secret cave!”

  Señor Luis Gonzalez was visibly impressed. He had heard a lot about the fantastic exploits of the Omega men, for their deeds were legendary among the cops of every nation. But the yarns he had listened to he had always privately considered pure guff, sheer fable, tall tales told to flummox dopes. Now, however, he saw the tangible evidence that this famous band of crime-fighters were in reality the miracle-workers legend made them out to be.

  “Hai, caramba!” the dwarfish detective breathed, swarthy features paling to the hue of sour milk. “S-Señor Scorchy, ‘ow deed hyou do eet?”

  The Pride of the Muldoons had the rare presence of mind to shrug nonchalantly, feigning a casual boredom he did not in the slightest really feel.

  “Oh, shucks, Louie,” he said carelessly, buffing the nails of one hand on his lapel, then holding up that hand to admire the digits. “Nuttin’ to it, really! Me and the boys, why, we gotta lotta tricks up our sleeve; you know how it is!”

  He tried to pretend that opening trick doors to secret caves in the sides of volcanoes was the sort of thing he did every day in the week. If his offhand manner actually gulled Luis Gonzalez into swallowing this, it was only because the crook-chaser from Luzon was still bedazedly marveling over the feat — which had actually been nothing but the most incredible stroke of pure luck, of course.

  “Guess the chief found this here hidey-hole, too,” yawned Scorchy with a pretense of boredom. “Well, while we’re here, Louie, what say we take us a look-see down inside. Be kinda nice, huh, to be in on the wrap-up?”

  “Whatevair hyou say, Señor Scorchy,” hissed the little cop, gold teeth sparklingly revealed in a dazed smile. His pop-eyes followed Scorchy with a sheen in them that could only have been hero-worship as the bantamweight boxer poked his head gingerly into the opening his chance touch had revealed.

  A moment later, Scorchy ducked into the black mouth of the hidden opening and vanished. Señor Luis Gonzalez squared his broadly-padded shoulders manfully, and tiptoed after the intrepid little Irishman.

  From the expression on his ugly face, it was apparent that the redheaded little Irishman had dislodged “Homphrey Bogart” from his pedestal in the esteem of the comical little detective of the islands.

  The tunnel in the side of the volcano turned out to be narrower than a miser’s generosity, and blacker than a vampire’s sins.

  Some hand — from the chisel-marks in the stone, it could not have been Dame Nature’s — had cut the secret tunnel deep into the solid stone of the volcano’s flanks.

  It had been, obviously, a crude and hasty job, with few luxuries. To get through it you had to walk sideways and inch along with your feet in a crablike shuffle.

  Scorchy had his gun out, ready for action, as he took the lead. There was just no telling where this long black hole led to, but if this was the way the chief had gone, Scorchy was determined to follow it to the end. And there could hardly be any question that Zarkon had ducked in here when he had, presumably, melted into thin air. Probably, the Man of Mysteries had carried one of his radio gadgets with him, reasoned Scorchy: probably the midget gizmo that could detect metal even through solid rock. This made sense, because the “door” to the hidden tunnel had turned out to be painted plaster molded on a steel frame: Scorchy had noticed this when he had stepped through the entrance into the black tunnel.

  “Heest! Señor Scorchy,” the dwarfish detective hissed in his ear a moment later.

  “Yeah? What is it, Louie?”

  “Light up ahead. Ees eet that hwe are come to the lair of the monstair?” whispered the Luzonian.

  Scorchy craned his neck about, peering up the tunnel. There was indeed a weird bluish glimmer faintly visible where it gleamed along the edges of the chisel-scrapes in the soft rock.

  “Sure, an’ Oi’m after guessin’ that yer right, me bucko,” breathed Scorchy, lapsing into his stage Irishman’s brogue, as he usually did when the situation began to heat up and looked to be getting hotter in the next few moments. “Are yez packin’ yer rod?”

  The detective gave a golden-toothed grin, displaying the enormous revolver he had worn concealed
under his coat.

  “Then le’s git goin’,” burbled Scorchy, grinning excitedly. Things had been fairly dull up till now — a mere matter of two murders, a couple of disappearances, and a mysterious fire — but Scorchy had a hunch some real excitement lay dead ahead.

  The runty Irishman had his own weapon with him, of course. But it was one of the special gimmicks Prince Zarkon insisted that his lieutenants use: fired by compressed air, the trick revolvers shot bullets made of hard rubber. These were remarkably effective when used against human foes, because the Omega men were trained experts in knowing where to hit their enemies with the rubber bullets in order to incapacitate them harmlessly. The major nerve centers — exposed clumps of sensitive ganglia, like the “funny bone” part of elbow or kneecap, the solar plexus, and so on — these were their usual targets.

  But where the dickens were the sensitive places on a volcano devil? Scorchy swore under his breath, glad that Señor Luis Gonzalez packed a real rod that spit steel-jacketed lead. This spare-the-poor-crook’s-life side of his chief’s character was one part of Zarkon’s personality with which Scorchy Muldoon quarreled.

  To his way of thinking, the best sort of criminal is the one with a couple of slugs pumped into him. And the runty redhead had a hunch that guns would be out and blamming away before much longer.

  Just how accurate this hunch was, Scorchy couldn’t have guessed until he and Chicago Louie turned the next corner and found themselves the spectators gazing upon an astounding tableau!

  CHAPTER 19 — In the Ogre’s Den

  Phoenicia found descending into the crater of a live volcano a bit more exciting than she had calculated.

  The blond adventuress found danger mighty stimulating. But this latest madcap scheme of hers provided just a bit more of a stimulus than she had really bargained for.

  For one thing, it was almost impossible to breathe. Live steam and stinking fumes of hot sulfur came billowing up from the bubbling lava-lake below. Her eyes watered uncontrollably, blurring her vision, and her mouth and the lining of her throat ached painfully from the choking vapors.

  The ledge itself was narrow and precipitous and scary. Bits of crumbling rock rolled loosely underfoot. At times the rocky footpath shrank until it was only inches wide; and even at its widest it was pretty difficult to negotiate. If she had a block and tackle, a safety line, or regular mountain-scaling equipment, it wouldn’t have been so tough. But, of course, she had none of these things.

  Where the ledge narrowed until it was only inches wide, the girl was forced to hug the inner crater wall, inching along on her tiptoes, with the heels of her shoes hanging out over empty space.

  The rocky wall to which she clung, at such times, was blisteringly hot. She hung on gamely, grimly feeling her way down the steep incline of the ledge with a cautious toe, trying to ignore the pain in her fingers and also trying not to think about that bubbling lake of cherry-red, glowing lava which seethed and slurped and slopped beneath her heels.

  One false step, she knew, would precipitate her into that pool of liquid rock. She would be fried like a flounder on a hot griddle within half a second. This was not the most cheerful thing to contemplate, and at times the plucky girl gulped, trying to keep down her breakfast.

  Luckily, Fooey Mulligan had been in plenty of tight spots before, and could keep a cool head and steady nerves even in situations as scary as this present one. Over the years she had gotten herself into a lot of tricky circumstances like this one. Always before, she had managed to get out of them pretty much in one piece. So the girl had confidence in her ability to come through the squeeze with a whole skin.

  It was fortunate for Phoenicia Mulligan, however, that this particular volcano had a particularly shallow crater. Almost before she knew it, the danger-loving heiress found herself at the entrance to the hole in the wall into which the ogre must have ducked.

  Fooey hung on to the stony outcropping which overhung the mouth of the cave and prevented it from being seen from above, pondering her next step.

  She really hadn’t stopped to think what she intended to do at this juncture. The blond girl had a tendency to just plunge headlong into a dangerous situation, without thinking out her moves in advance. She trusted her proven abilities to keep her head clear, her hands steady, and her nerves unshaken during any sort of an emergency.

  Up till now, these abilities had pulled her through. But Phoenicia had never quite gotten herself into a scrape as tight and tough as this one, and now the girl gritted her teeth and cussed a little, wishing she had thought about what to do once she actually got down here.

  It seemed, even to her, incredibly foolhardy to go climbing into the ogre’s den, knowing good and well that the man-killing monster was in there somewhere, prowling around. It was on a par with walking into a grizzly’s cave, aware that the grizzly was currently in residence.

  But — what else was there to do? She didn’t like the idea of going back without really having accomplished much of anything. She could imagine how Nick would snicker at the knowledge that she had climbed all the way down into the crater to the very monster’s very front door, then lost her nerve at the last moment, and had to come shame-facedly back. Retreat from a trouble-spot was not in Fooey’s character!

  On the other hand, it was virtually suicidal to go climbing into the ogre’s lair, with the creature in there somewhere.

  Sure, she had her gun with her, but so what? She had already emptied the pistol smack into the monster’s chest at point-blank range, without even slowing it down. What she really needed, in the present instance, was a bazooka. Or a hand-grenade!

  But she had neither.

  And by now, Nick Naldini would surely have caught his breath and would have scaled the remainder of the slope. Reaching the peak, the lanky magician would at this very moment be scouting around, hunting for her. She could just picture the grin on his long-chinned, Mephisto-bearded face when he saw her climbing back out of the volcano, a trembling, gooey mass of the shivers!

  The blond girl clenched her jaw stubbornly.

  Anything was better than that, she decided. Well ... almost anything, she amended.

  So there was nothing to do but venture in and beard the ogre in his hidey-hole.

  And, besides, she was getting tired of hanging on to this hunk of hot rock.

  So, drawing a deep breath, ignoring the sting of sulfur-reek, the girl ducked her head down and squeezed herself into the black mouth of the cave. Once inside, Phoenicia found that the air was cooler and much more breathable.

  The cave seemed pitch-dark at first, despite a dim glow which seeped in through the cave-mouth from the lava pit at the crater’s floor. The cherry-red light did little to alleviate the dense blackness.

  Then, in a moment, her eyes adjusted themselves to a faint pulse of luminance from somewhere up ahead. By the faint blue light glimmering up ahead at the end of the tunnel, and the dim red glow beating in through the entrance, she could just make out the broken rocky floor underfoot and something of the low-hanging roof.

  She began to go forward, bumping her head a couple of times on the uneven roof.

  It was slow going, but at the end of the tunnel the rocky walls widened out into a large chamber.

  At the entrance to this inner chamber, Phoenicia Mulligan stopped short. Her eyes widened at the scene which she now saw before her.

  The blue light came from a mercury-vapor lamp hung from a projection on the ceiling.

  The floor of the cave was a deep pit, hollowed out in such a manner that it left a rocky ledge around the circular wall of this chamber, about three feet wide.

  At the bottom of the pit in the chamber’s floor, an irregular mass of mineral was exposed to view.

  It was a rough, pitted mass of something resembling pure metal. But the metal itself was unrecognizable. A gray, slick stuff, shedding just the feeblest glow of yellowish-green light. She had never seen or heard of anything that looked like that, and could not imagine what it was
.

  Not that she had much time to think about it.

  For there, crouching on the ledge which ran around the inside of the chamber, was the ogre in all its hideousness!

  The monster was leaning over the pit which had been hollowed out in the floor of the chamber, obviously in order to expose the glowing mass of peculiar, unearthly metal.

  At her appearance, the troll looked up.

  It had no face. No face at all. Neither nose nor mouth nor ears. Two slits formed its eyes: the remainder of its visage was a smooth expanse of brownish substance which looked like solid rock. At least, the monster’s head and face seemed to be coated with scaled, flaky, irregular coatings of something like rock.

  It had a barrel torso, massive humped shoulders, thick gorilloid arms that were wider around than a grown man’s upper thighs. These arms ended in mitten-like paws.

  Spotting the girl in the entrance, frozen there in amazement, the monster got to its feet. It moved amazingly fast for anything as huge and as obviously heavy as it was.

  It came lunging at her, huge paws out-thrust to catch and grab.

  This time, the paws weren’t smoking-hot. Nor did they dribble molten lava.

  She could see that they were not really monster-paws at all, but thick, mitten-like protective gloves fashioned from some tough, durable, heat-resistant substance.

  She could also see that the monster’s head was a heavy helmet of some indefinable brown material. Its slitted eyes were actually recessed plates of inch-thick transparent glass or quartz. Because through them she could see the eyes of the person who wore the helmet, and the mittens, and the heavy protective suit.

  And she screamed!

  Not so much because the man in the monster-like suit was making a lunge for her. But because the eyes which peered through those thick transparent goggles were eyes that she recognized —